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Mari Makinami Illustrious
|japanactor = Maaya Sakamoto }} Mari Makinami Illustrious (真希波・イラストリアス・マリ) is an Eva pilot and third party operative introduced in Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance. She is a stylized brunette with glasses and "twin tails". Profile Mari is shown to have an enigmatic personality. Out of all the pilots, she is the only one who admits that she genuinely enjoys piloting. Her repeated comments suggest that she enjoys the smell of LCL. She's uninhibited, identifying Shinji as a pilot in their first encounter by crawling up to him on all fours and sniffing for the smell of LCL. It is implied that Mari works for an unknown third party. A pilot designation has not been provided, assuming Mari officially has one (in-universe). In combat, she is extremely aggressive. Despite her inexperience, she is shown to be an expert pilot on the level of Asuka, if not higher. Story Her first engagement with the Third Angel used no tactics whatsoever, but saw her attacking the Angel head-on, chasing it outside of the base and pinning it down before self-destructing. She also appears to be aware of the Evas' sentient nature to some extent, going so far as to directly addressing them in a compassionate tone and even whispering goodbye to Unit-05 after its destruction. This makes it unlikely that she was the one who sabotaged it, although her being an acquaintance of Ryoji Kaji is suspicious. When the Tenth Angel attacked Tokyo-3 at the end of the movie, Mari launched Evangelion Unit-02 with IPEA assistance to engage in battle, intercepting the Angel inside the Geofront while dual-wielding pallet rifles. Unlike Asuka's repeated attempts at damaging the Angel in the series however, Mari quickly gave up on ranged attacks and went into a screaming charge with a Thunder Spear, leaping onto the Angel and firing Unit-02's needle guns in an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the Angel's AT-field with a point-blank attack. In the English dub, she is quite foul-mouthed, constantly taunting her opponents while piloting. She also demonstrated considerable knowledge about the inner workings of Evangelions by activating Unit-02's Beast Mode (which resembles a "controlled berserk"). During this, she demonstrated a bloodthirsty, animalistic behavior not unlike that of the Eva, and despite the heavy damage sustained, she never once attempted to retreat but pressed her attacks until her Eva was damaged beyond combat capability. Mari uses two distinct plugsuits over the course of the film. The first is the unusual green and white suit that appears to be custom-built for Unit-05, with different material on the limbs (corresponding to the Eva's mechanical prostheses) and three green tubes attached to each wrist (probably involved in the "forced synch" with the prostheses). The second plugsuit, worn for Mari's sortie in Unit-02, is a pink one with white trim very similar to Kaworu's. Despite her change in Evas, her new plugsuit still bears a 05, suggesting it may have been intended for use with that Unit once it would have been fully completed. In Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo, Mari pilots the Evangelion Unit-08 to aid Asuka during the mission to rescue Shinji. Later, she tries to stop Evangelion Mark.09 but only manages to destroys its head. She's shown to have an habit at giving nicknames to characters, as she nicknames Asuka "Princess" and Shinji "Puppy Boy". Someone similar to Mari can be seen with Shinji's mother in the photo shown to him by Fuyutsuki, the link between this person and Mari is currently unknown, or it could suggest that Mari may be much older than she lets on, possibly suffering from the "Curse of Eva". Before the Fourth Impact is initiated, she fights against Mark.09 one more time. She makes her last appearance when she uses Unit-08 to remove Shinji from inside the Evangelion 13, yelling at him to be a man and get to know the world a little before his entry plug is finally removed. Notes and references Mari's character has a tumultuous development history, with Chief Director Anno knowing little more of his intent for her than that he wanted her to "destroy Eva". Director Kazuya Tsurumaki ended up shouldering much of the responsibility for Mari, and was also recruited during a writer's retreat to provide an outsider's opinion. Much of the disagreement revolved around how (and how much) to integrate Mari into the preexisting Eva framework, and the nature of her personality. At one point, Mari was to do little more than appear in the pre-title Third Angel sequence and to later observe the Tenth Angel's destructive power (the latter idea shown in the first movie's trailer for Ha). Various ideas were tested in early script drafts and storyboards wherein Mari took over part of another character's role from NGE, eventually abandoned due to the desire to give Mari her own identity. Enokido's suggestion was that Mari should provide a rival for Asuka who ultimately usurps her. Mari is named after two World War II warships, the Japanese destroyer Makinami (巻波, "overflowing waves") and the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. The two names may be intended to, as in Asuka's case, represent a mixed heritage: here, British and Japanese (at minimum). Strictly speaking, neither "Illustrious" or "Makinami" (written as 真希波, "noble true wave") are real surnames,Google searches for "真希波" only yield results related to Mari's name, indicating that "Makinami" written this way is probably an original invention for this character. although this may be nothing more than a creative liberty. Her first name was originally unveiled in the Nintendo DS Petite Eva@School game.DS game screen shots Later, one of the official movie posters included a "teaser" for her full name: showing the "Mari" part, and substituting the remaining characters with asterisks ("*** Mari *******"). Mari's entire name was at last revealed in a revised version of the poster included with the first issue of Eva Extra.Promotional poster with revised terms list. Before her actual name surfaced, Mari was known exclusively among fans as "Glasses Girl" (among Japanese fans, めがねのこ, megane no ko, meaning the same thing). *As she approaches the Angel in Bethany Base, Mari sings part of the song "The 356-Step March" by Kiyoko Suizenji: マリ「しあわっせはーあるいってこないだーからあるいってゆっくんだねーん　 いっちにっちいっぽみーかでさんぽ 　さーんぽすすんでにっほさっがるー　 じーんせいはっわんつー！ぱんち・・・ Shiawase wa aruite konai, dakara aruite yuku 'n da ne Ichinichi, ippo. Mikka de sanpo. Sanpo susunde, niho sagaru Jinsei wa, one-two-panchi... Mari (singing): ♪　Happiness doesn't walk to me, because I'm walking to it One day, one step. Three steps in three days Three steps forward, two steps back Life's a one-two punch... ♪ Category:Characters Category:Rebuild of Evangelion Category:Extracanonical Evangelion pilots Category:WILLE